Wednesday, January 12, 2011

The MZone has learned that Nick at Nite is going to be producing a television show inspired by Michigan's just-completed coaching search. Our sources gave us an early look at the script and below are the lyrics for the theme song as well as the show's poster.

Here's the story, of a brand new ADWho was searching for a coach to lead the BlueAll the alums had hoped for someone, like Jim HarbaughBut that went down the tubes

Here's the story, of a man named BradyWho was busy with a WAC team of his ownThey went 9-4, with a bowl winYet his love of A2 was well known

'Til the one day when the AD called this fellowAnd they met in San Diego over lunchWhere an offer was made to join the Michigan familyThat's the way U-M became the Brady Bunch.

The Brady Bunch.The Brady Bunch.That's the way we became the Brady Bunch!

Unreal. I never had confidence in DB, now any speck of it I may have had is completely gone. Not so much for the hiring of Hoke, but for the way he handled this entire situation. How much would you like to bet that JH and LM didn't want to come here (IF they were even offered the job) because they know DB enough to know that he would be up in their business all the time and make them crazy? I wonder if Hoke knows what he is in for with DB. Hoke has a new best friend, one that will watch film with him.........Fun times.

Basically DB gave merit to Drew Assclown Sharp who went on ESPN to say that we are not a national program and shouldn't expect a national coach. Nice job DB, Nice job.

I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised by the team that Brady puts on the field this fall. I believe that he has the perfect demeanor to bring the best out of these kids and to get them to believe in themselves and enjoy playing football again.

I believe the tension and the adversity that swarmed this team under the previous coaching staff led to the team playing well below its potential. They played not to lose, instead of playing to win.

Brady has worked hard - working his way up the ranks of the coaching world - from Grand Valley State....all the way to the head coaching gig at Michigan. My guess is that he learned a little something over the years, all the way here.

Maybe sometimes, the good guys do finish first. Maybe sometimes, hard work does pay off in the end. Maybe sometimes, all of your dreams do come true.

I'd like to believe that our new Head Football Coach did things "the right way" as he paid his dues - all the way to Ann Arbor.

What I do know is that the winningest program in the history of the college game fell from grace over the last three years - so much so that when the top job opened up, nobody wanted it.

Not even two "michigan men" who openly desired the position for years. Both of them used the University of Michigan in the last two weeks to better themselves elsewhere. Screw them.

I hope Coach Hoke passes around his '97 National Championship ring and lets the kids put it on and stare at it for motivation. I hope he shares with them his perspective of the dedication and teamwork it took to get to the top of the world that year - and then goes and draws out the best that these kids have in them.

The team that nobody wanted to coach, led by the coach that nobody wanted to come.

I believe that this team will from your post forward be known far and wide as "The Brady Bunch". I am also predicting that the Brady Bunch will be kicking some B10 butt in the near future.

Thanks for the new nickname!

I must be late to the party, or perhaps I am just slow. I am only now figuring out that LC is still being blamed for the demise of the Rich Rod era. I am amazed at the vitriol aimed at LC and that he is held up as all that was wrong with Michigan Football, as opposed to say being thought of as the last coach to bring us a National Championship, and season after season of National relevance.

I get the disappointment of the losses to tOSU, the pain and stigma of the loss to ..well you know the LOSS, and the game a year that shouldn't have been lost due to playing conservatively.

As for some posts on other blogs aaaaargh! For the head of the Kool Aid gang to still be whining about the fairness of firing a coach that failed in the FUNDAMENTAL aspects of his job after having led three years of the ALL IN no matter what mantra, amazes me. And then to paint Brady Hoke with the same brush before the Coach even has his feet on the ground strikes me as a bit hypocritical.

Brady Hoke may have coached for LC, but no one has a reason to believe that he is an LC clone. Maybe we will be surprised to find that Brady Hoke is the best of LC with a measure of his own unique abilities which can't be a bad thing.

I love Michigan and I think it makes a difference when a coach would crawl to Ann Arbor to coach this team.

Yost,you've shown a fondness for Tony Gerdeman's work @ the Ozone over the last season. i'd be interested in your take on his column "Hoke: Maybe not perfect, but a step forward for U of M", which, at best, seems to me damning w/ faint praise.

he basically predicts a return to the "glory days" of Lloyd in his last decade- 2 to 4 losses every year, 2-5 in bowl games, 1-6 against Tressel. you know-the "good old days" when were just mediocre & over rated, instead of bad.

i think he, and most everyone, sees Hoke establishing THAT level of success. a good regional team (who da thunk Drew Sharp might be right about that?) that goes to a nice bowl & gets a little hype until we play a road game or tosu. to use Gerdeman's phrase- an elitest Wisconsin.

I'm happier that you went with the 'Brady Bunch' reference than the 'Hokey Pokey' route.

The 'turn yourself around' part is too easy for a blog of this character. Glad you aren't mailing it in.

All in all, I think 'eventually' this will be a good hire. My fear with the Harbaugh and Miles options was that this would end up like the Weiss hire at ND. IMO UM doesn't need a hero to ride in on a white horse and tell everyone to book their flights to Pasedena.

The Hoke hire reminds me a lot of Carr's entry as HC in 95. (Though admittedly, the talent for the offense and defense Hoke will run isn't there on either side).

My thoughts are that you, and Gerd and I don't know. We. Don't. Know. Am I going to say he's gonna come in and we're gonna compete for MNC each year? Of course not. But did a certain hiring in Cbus send shudders down anyone's spine 10 years ago?

I think most people were like "Jim who?" You're replacing a coach who consistently went 9-2 or 10-1 (albeit that "1" was against us) with a D-11 coach. And then he gave that speech about being proud of the team in A2 in 300+ days and you could almost hear the laughs coming from A2.

And Auburn fans showed up AT THE AIRPORT to boo Gene Chizik when they hired the 5-19 - f'ing 5-19! - Iowa State coach to replace Tommy Tuberville. Chip Kelly was an OC at New Hampshire two years before taking over at Oregon.

So, I don't know, you don't know and all the people ripping on the guy before he even comes out of the tunnel to coach his first game don't know. Give the man a chance.

All this shit about, "If Hoke were a former line coach somewhere else besides Mich, we wouldn't be taking about him." Bullshit. If Brady Hoke had been Jim Tressel's line coach when they won the NC, then went off and turned Ball State - f'ing Ball State - into a 12-1 squad, then left there and went to SDSU and had them at 9-4 with their first bowl win since before the Tet Offensive, those same naysayers would be saying he could be the second coming of Bo.

I think the biggest problem is some folks have a problem with the fact that he was LLOYD'S line coach. This isn't so much about BH as it is about LC. Again, the animus toward a man who did nothing but win an NC and 6 B10 titles in 13 seasons at the helm is crazy.

Short of Harbaugh, no choice was going to totally unite the masses. But we got the "Harbaugh of his day" three years ago in RR. He was the can't miss choice. And that didn't work.

I find it especially ironic that folks most ripping Hoke before he coaches his first game were the ones urging patience and a 4th year for Rich Rod.

So if Hoke is 7-6 in his third year, after getting smoked by 20, 30, and 38 points in his last three games and against anybody with a pulse. And if squeaks by the shit teams like PU and IU. And if he fields the worst three defenses (or offenses) in the HISTORY OF THE PROGRAM, then let's talk about him not working out.

Until then, give the poor man a chance to at least run under the damn banner to the fight song before lamenting the choice.

As I said in one of the other posts on here, he's not the sexy choice but he may have been the best choice. Harbaugh, for as much as he would have been hailed as a savior had he come here, probably was looking to bolt for the NFL at the first opportunity. As luck would have it, he had that opportunity. He would brought a different kind of uncertainty to the team and I'm not sure that would be a good thing.

Miles, I think the scholarship thing tainted him from the get go. Getting rid of Rich Rod to bring him in would have been like going from the frying pan to the fire. Not to mention some of the other traits he has shown at LSU.

And as people have pointed out, Hoke has clawed his way to the top. He has taken two traditionally unacceptable programs and turned them around under his watch. To me that says something. Seemingly, he did with honor. And he seems to emphasize defense, which is what this team needs. I think alot of his success here depends on who he brings with him as his staff. And as people have pointed out, there have been alot of coaches that have been basically unproven at Division IA and have been successful.

Yost,If I had asked you last September to list your top 5 candidates to replace R2, would you have named Hoke?

I think there are two separate reactions taking place- one to the “hiring” of Brady Hoke, and the other to Brady Hoke being the Head Coach. Most everyone will adjust to & accept the latter. Probably more so than the anit R2 crowd ever would have. By kick off in September, absent something egregiously stupid on his part, most Michigan fans will line up behind Hoke & cheer for the team. And if he wins, we’ll all embrace him (at the end of the day, R2’s only real problem was the losses- everything else was just details).

However, I don’t think people (myself included) are out of line or being haters for not liking his hiring at this point. When Brandon announced he’d hired a consultant and was starting a “national search” last week, did you see it leading to Hoke (you even made a joke of the consultant in one of your posts)? I think the expectation created and the result achieved are inconsistent here, and that’s not Hoke’s fault, it’s Brandon’s.

If Brandon had announced last week that the coaching search was going to place a high value on hiring someone w/ an established “affinity” to program, I might not have agreed w/ the criterion, but I would have understood the plan and the eventual hiring of Hoke, out of a relatively small pool of candidates w/ a Michigan connection would have been a consistent outcome. The disconnect, for me, is that out of a national search of all of a week, we ended up hiring the guy standing in front of us the whole time. In essence, the national search does not seem so national, aside from Hoke was coaching at SDSU.

So, I think you are right to expect Michigan fans to eventually support the coach, and cheer for him & the team to win. But based on his credentials, do you think people who question if he was really the best coach available are from the tin foil set? Really?

And I don’t think it’s odd that many fans are neither pleased nor silent about their discontent at this decision. We’ll all come around, just not right away. This isn’t Oceania circa 1984.

Of course everyone will line up behind him... it's not like it's +two mutually exclusive events, to believe that RR should have gotten another year or that Hoke should be given a fair chance before judging. I'm also thinking the "back to basics" approach isn't a bad thing - we kind of sucked at the basics this year.

Justthinking, great words, great...why would any one bag on LC? A natioanl champion...did everone forget about our D..if so watch some of the games on B10 network. We weren't getting smoked ever game, ever game we had a shot..granted a couple of losses sucked..OR...App st...but UofM fought back & the years werenot lost.as for Brady I am pumped..for him & UofM footballGO BLUE

Deliberate Dave used his 12 step program and DATA to pick a new coach. Wow. There's an idea---criteria and facts.I think DB got this right. He told Mike Hall from BTN that one of the most interesting data points he noted was that if the coach has no ties to the area where he takes over, then he is more likely to be invited to leave than not (paraphrase).Who wouldn't want their kid to play for a guy who says that he is here to develop husbands, fathers, and citizens who win football games?Recruiting will be fine.Wins will come.And this will all be a very very bad dream.....

I have been very quiet lately as all of this played out but am very excited about Hoke being the new coach. I like that he really wants to be here, has the interest of the team and players first, understands the traditions and rivalries and most of all has integrity. Bill Martin's failure to bring this kind of coach here three years ago will become his legacy and overshadow his other accomplishments. Brandon doing his search in a methodical, professional manner and not getting pressured into a quick decision will pay off in the long run. As Catie (and the band) always say, "It's great to be a Michigan Wolverine" and it will now actually become fun again.

The more I think about it (while I should be doing other things) even though we all laughed about it, I'm glad DB used the words "nationwide search" even if he knew he wanted Hoke last month. It reinforced the status of our school.

One more thing. Alot of people criticized Brandon for waiting until after the bowl games to make his decision. I wonder how many of those people were the same ones that criticized Martin for grabbing Rich Rod before his bowl game? I'm not a big believer in Karma but sometimes it seems like it can be a rough MF. If something is worth doing, it's worth doing it the right way. Lots of people throughout history got burned by the lesson.

Will it hurt recruiting this year? Yes. But since when do you make a decision like a coach based on one year?

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